Guns & Guts (VCI)
Picture: C
Sound: C+ Extras: C Film: C+
The Spaghetti Western was on the decline by the mid-1970s,
but everyone was trying to cash in.
The biggest problem is that most of the films decided to be broad
comedies and all that did was lead to the overall demise of The Western genre
in general. Though it is not up to the
Leone films, Rene Cardona, Jr.’s Guns & Guts (1974, aka Las
Viboras cambian de piel) was one of the few in the cycle that was ambitious
and tried to create a serious take on it.
The skilled gunslinger El Pistolero (Jorge Rivero) has
decided that the best way to have a future free of risk and poverty is to
finish one last big job while investing slowly in a group of hookers. However, the “pimp daddy” route will not be
that simple, with old enemies and so many people with greed and murder on their
mind. The job is to eliminate a sheriff
(Quintin Bulnes) while hiding in a monastery, but the arrangement soon turns
very unholy as backstabbing becomes epidemic.
Rogelio Guerra and Pedro Armendariz, Jr. also star. The film is serious, but derivative,
including the typical Professional Western ending Wild Bunch style…
almost.
The anamorphically enhanced 2.35 X 1 image was shot in
real Panavision by cinematographer Jose Ortiz Ramos, shot with EastmanColor
stocks and is very mixed. Though a tad
richer than Techniscope of Super 35mm, this transfer and the print have
issues. The print is in above average
condition at best, while the film-to-tape results have detail and Video Red
issues, along with some Video Black issues.
There are times you can see how good this must have looked in its
original release, but this DVD is very mixed at best. The Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono fares just better by not being
compressed, but you can tell it is an English dub all the way. Extras include text bios of the cast and
crew, plus trailers for this and a few other VCI DVDs of films directed by
Cardoza.
- Nicholas Sheffo
